Chandrayaan-3 launch vehicle debris to fall in North Pacific Ocean

Chandrayaan-3's Vikram Lander taken by Pragyan rover's navigation camera: ANI Photo Edited by Utkarash Mishra, Published by rediff.com, 16 November 2023 The cryogenic upper stage of the LVM3 M4 launch vehicle, which successfully injected the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft into the intended orbit on July 14 this year, made an uncontrolled re-entry into the

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At SpaceX, worker injuries soar in Elon Musk’s rush to Mars

By Marisa Taylor, Published by Reuters, 10 November 2023 Reuters documented at least 600 previously unreported workplace injuries at Musk’s rocket company: crushed limbs, amputations, electrocutions, head and eye wounds and one death. SpaceX employees say they’re paying the price for the billionaire’s push to colonize space at breakneck speed.

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Over the past six years, governments proposed launching over one million satellites, but where will they all go?

By Andrew Falle, Ewan Wright, Published by The Conversation, 7 November 2023 As the number of satellites in orbit increase, so will the possibilities of space debris. There are currently 8,000 satellites in orbit, but hundreds of thousands more are being proposed. In September 2021, Rwanda announced that it was planning

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Burned-up space junk pollutes Earth’s upper atmosphere, NASA planes find

By Tereza Pultarova, Published by Space.com, 19 October 2023 Chemicals created by fiery satellite re-entries could affect Earth's climate. Scientists have long thought that the burning up of space junk in Earth's atmosphere creates air pollution that can affect the planet's climate. Now, for the first time, they've managed to

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NOAA scientists link exotic metal particles in the upper atmosphere to rockets, satellites

The view from NASA’s WB-57 cockpit during a SABRE high-altitude research flight. Credit: NASA Published by NOAA Research, 16 October 2023 NOAA scientists investigating the stratosphere have found that in addition to meteoric ‘space dust,’ the atmosphere more than seven miles above the surface is peppered with particles containing a

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Signatures of the Space Age: Spacecraft metals left in the wake of humanity’s path to the stars

By Brittany Steff, Purdue University Published by Phys.org, 16 October 2023 The Space Age is leaving fingerprints on one of the most remote parts of the planet—the stratosphere—which has potential implications for climate, the ozone layer and the continued habitability of Earth. Using tools hitched to the nose cone of

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Starlink satellites are ‘leaking’ signals that interfere with our most sensitive radio telescopes

Starlink satellites emit bright, unintended and unexpected signals that can be detected by radio telescopes. By Steven Tingay, Published by The Conversation, 13 October 2023 When I was a child in the 1970s, seeing a satellite pass overhead in the night sky was a rare event. Now it is commonplace:

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